Just heard from the lobbyist and this is his report. He told me yesterday that the State Capitol had a nuclear meltdown in the political world and that many things were at a stand still. Not just HB 2833, but MAN MANY other bills.
Here's his report:
The democrats have spent, much of Friday, all of Saturday, most of yesterday, and all day today arguing about HB12, a bill that they all acknowledge will pass, submitting amendments, arguing and wasting time, just to prove a point. I'm not sure exactly what the point, but I am sure that we now have over a thousand bills backlogged and the vast majority of them will never be heard.
All this discussion has been about the Sanctuary Cities bill and we have at least three more bills which the Democrats have expressed their intentions of doing the same thing. I can assure you that only a handful of what I will call 'simple' bills will be passed in the closing days. These will be the pet bills of the members or the pet bills of some of the large special interest groups and I'm sorry to say that HB2833 is neither.
This is the third session that has ended with a complete meltdown over a single issue which resulted in hundreds and hundreds of very worthwhile bills never making it to the floor of the House to be discussed or voted on.
Our bill has had some opposition, but it's still a good bill. If everything else was equal and we just got passed over because of some opposition, I would understand, but I've been working on a couple of bills since way before the session that do not have a single bit of opposition that will die the same death.
He is working on a few more angles but with Austin at a standoff, it's not looking good.
